Thursday, May 12, 2011

B-Squares: Modular Solar Power for Gadgets

I'm a backer! B-Squares is a project on Kickstarter, which means that they need a commitment of a certain amount from any number of backers in order to move forward, and backers don't have to pay anything if they don't reach the threshold for funding. It's small-scale venture capitalism.

B-Squares aims to commercially produce hackable, modular solar powered gadgets. It has both an Arduino module and a "proto" module that pretty much has a blank PCB (printed circuit board) in it for you to play with. Through those two modules I think there are a ton of opportunities for neat little things, remote sensing stations in particular. Put them inside big pickle jars on poles and you can have a pretty much autonomous outposts in the wild.
I went in for $100 to get the developer kit when it comes out. I'm really excited about the possibility of powering some robots with solar!